URL
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.07.20227595v1
Type d’article
Preprint
Thème
Stratégies de contrôle
Que retenir de cet article, en 1-2 phrases ?
A SIR model with a quarantine compartment is proposed and analysed through a moment closure approximation. One can derive some relevant parameter regions and quantify the influence of quarantining and self-distancing on the spread of the epidemic, and how both measures have to be used simultaneously.
Objectifs de l’étude / Questions abordées
- To study a SIR model and provide quantitative estimates of key quantities,
- To explore the model numerically
Méthode
SIR system based on ODEs with standard moment closure. Approximation of the size of the epidemic. Numerical simulations.
Résultats principaux
It is shown that the critical infection rate above which there is an epidemic outbreak and the overall size of the epidemic can be approximated as simple functions of the parameters controlling quarantine and social-distancing: affine for the critical infection rate, and inverse of an affine function for the overall size of the epidemic.
Commentaire / brève évaluation, limites, ouvertures possibles
The questions addressed are classical: (I) the epidemic threshold, (II) the total number of infected individuals, and (III) the peak of the epidemic. The conclusion is expected: there is a balancing effect between strong quarantining and social self-distancing, i.e., the weakening of one measure necessitates the strengthening of the other. There is also a mutual compensation effect between the two mitigation strategies: as long as social distancing and quarantine measures are both sufficiently strong, large outbreaks are prevented. How the approximations are made give some possibilities to derive and check implicit relations between the quantities of interest.